Canadian copyright bill proposal includes $20,000 fines

Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice called his country's proposed new copyright law a "win-win" for consumers and copyright holders alike. It seems obvious what the copyright lobby has won, since it would make sharing copyrighted material an offense punishable by a $20,000 fine. Exactly what he thinks consumers are getting out of the deal is less clear.

To be fair the law would expressly permit time shifting, such as recording TV shows with a DVR, and format shifting like encoding songs from a CD to play on your MP3 player. Both of those could be wins for the consumer - except of course for the so-called digital lock provisions. In a nutshell they make it illegal to circumvent copy protection, similar to provisions in the United States' DMCA or various implementations of the European Union's EUCD.

In return the public wins the right to be sued for up to $500 per violation when illegal copies are made solely for private use. While that may seem more lenient than say the RIAA judgements agains US file sharers, keep in mind those violations would actually fall into the $20,000 category. Private use would include things like copying a protected CD to your own music server which can only be accessed within your house.

The Canadian Music Creators Coalition doesn't seem to feel they're winning either. The group was formed to give Canadian artists a voice in copyright policy. Safwan Javed, CMCC member and drummer for Wide Mouth Mason described the proposal as "all locks and lawsuits." He also said “Suing fans won’t make it 1992 again. It’s a new world for the music business and this is an old approach.”

18 user comments

win win? there is no win here for consumers until you treat consumer piracy IE not for profit piracy as less than a mister minor and small fines of no more than 500$ USD its nothign but a loss for the consumer and a crutch for the industry to lean on.

IMO shearing falls under the umbrella of private use its meant to be used for private archiving and such as long as there is no profit made there is no harm done, by bullying the public to only be "safe" when you buy retail is a joke and dose nothing to protect the consumer from profiteering and greed.

This is not a middle ground but the trenches the industry can pee in.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 13 Jun 2008 @ 0:45

Really they need to focus on illicit profit and not consumers fallowing the spirit of capitalism, make fines no more than twice the digi distro rate of the song and cap it off at 500, 20K is monstrous, how abotu 20 million dollar fines for CP/IP infringement at the corporate level?

Sorry but until there is balance in the system things like this are a joke.

Where has the ingenuity of the people gone why its been circumvented for corporate double profits.

Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Lets renegotiate them.

Originally posted by cory doctorow: The Canadian DMCA allows every single exception to copyright to be eliminated by adding DRM: whatever the law allows you to do, a corporation can take away, just by using DRM to prevent you from doing it. Breaking DRM is illegal, unless you fit into a tiny, narrow, useless exception for security research.

It used to be that Parliament got to write copyright law. Now, it's Hollywood companies, who get to overrule Parliamentary law with whatever "business rules" they put in their DRM.

Michael Geist has the depressing analysis. Makes me want to cry. Watch this space for tips on getting in touch with your MP to make sure that this farce dies in Parliament.

1. As expected, Prentice has provided a series of attention-grabbing provisions to consumers including time shifting, private copying of music (transfering a song to your iPod), and format shifting (changing format from analog to digital). These are good provisions that did not exist in the delayed December bill. However, check the fine print since the rules are subject to a host of strict limitations and, more importantly, undermined by the digital lock provisions. The effect of the digital lock provisions is to render these rights virtually meaningless in the digital environment because anything that is locked down (ie. copy-controlled CD, no-copy mandate on a digital television broadcast) cannot be copied. As for every day activities like transferring a DVD to your iPod - those are infringing too. Indeed, the law makes it an infringement to circumvent the locks for these purposes.

2. The digital lock provisions are worse than the DMCA. Yes - worse. The law creates a blanket prohibition on circumvention with very limited exceptions and creates a ban against distributing the tools that can be used to circumvent. While Prentice could have adopted a more balanced approach (as New Zealand and Canada's Bill C-60 did), the effect of these provisions will be to make Canadians infringers for a host of activities that are common today including watching out-of-region-coded DVDs, copying and pasting materials from a DRM'd book, or even unlocking a cellphone. The liability for picking the digital lock is up to $20,000 per infringement.

While that is the similar to the U.S. law, the exceptions are worse. The Canadian law includes a few limited exceptions for privacy, encryption research, interoperable computer programs, people with sight disabilities, and security, yet Canadians can't actually use these exceptions since the tools needed to pick the digital lock in order to protect their privacy are banned. In other words, check the fine print again - you can protect your privacy but the tools to do so are now illegal. Dig deeper and it gets worse. Under the U.S. law, there is mandatory review process every three years to identify new exceptions. Under the Canadian law, its up to the government to introduce new exceptions if it thinks it is needed. Overall, these anti-circumvention provisions go far beyond what is needed to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties and represents an astonishing abdication of the principles of copyright balance that have guided Canadian policy for many years.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 13 Jun 2008 @ 3:30

Originally posted by ikari:Wow. Either the government is stupid or they think people are stupid. I am curious how much these government officals are getting paid under the table to propose this?

I am thinking this is a win-win-win: Win for the officials bank account, win for the copy right holder, and a win for companies that will be paid to spy on you and what you are doing.

If only we could prove it. If people would band together and fight the real crooks (politicians)...but it'll never happen. Most people just don't care, and never will until it's gone too far. Just expect it to get a lot worse before it ever starts getting any better.

the present government is a minority government which means they have to get support from the other parties. also they will be going on summer holidays soon so won't be worked on til october the earlist & it still has to go thru the senate for it becomes law. there is a rumor of a possible snap fall election & if that happens then this bill gets tossed into the garbage.

I was walking last summer on the street and i found 2 kiosks beside each others. guess what? they have audio CDs and some DVDs, yes both of them.

I went to the first place, the guy said to me we have some nice music here, each CD 17$ and i have some 10$. I said ok i'll come back, i hit the door and went outside to check the other kiosk, it's like 20 meters away; i went there and this guy said to me, hey! we have CDs here for free!, i said what? free!, he said yes, we have the same collection that the other guy have but the difference is we give you the CD here for free instead of paying 17$, do u like it?
well i said to him thank you very much, give me one.

He gave me 1 CD, i took the CD with a smile on my face and i went to the other place and i said to him: hey i got the same CD that you have for here for free, your friend in the other kiosk is giving same stuff for free. The guy wasn't happy about it and he called the police.

the police came to the place and after questions and discussions they stopped the guy, Do u think they have the right to stop me? i don't think so, because all what i did was a choice, maybe yes they have the right to take the CD from me.

ok this short story is for the people who say that downloading is stealing, and i heard it many times, it's like they use this word to make reasons.

If u are stupid with problem in your head you'll go to the first kiosk and you pay 17$, if you are logical and normal person you'll get the same stuff from the other kiosk for free right?

now who's the bad person? the guy in the second kiosk for sure.

who's the logical and smart person? me, because i choosed the logical choice.

who's the person who got hurt? the guy in the first kiosk.

the internet is the same thing. U can find stuff for free even without searching or hacking or trying hard to get it.

the people who are uploading files are like the other kiosk and maybe yes they should be punished but it's for the government to got them and stop them, if they can or not i don't know it's their problem.

The guy in the first kiosk is like the companies that produce the music.

The downloaders are like the guy who decided to get it for free.

Please if you want to put laws, put laws on uploading not downloading. U gonna say but you can't download if people are not uploading for you, well it's not that what u want? for me i don't care and i don't mind, all what i want to say is:

Originally posted by ikari:Wow. Either the government is stupid or they think people are stupid. I am curious how much these government officals are getting paid under the table to propose this? *sigh*

the above line is both true- own current federal govt has little repect for the normal person-- and ther are not wining any g roup to ther cuse- as tehr are a govt that can and should get defeated- as it need a oother party to support it or we go to a election--my self it can not come to soom to get rid of the tory in power-- own PM is a control freak